6 Tips to Being Happy In The Present Moment

We all want to be happy. But we have preconceived notions or beliefs about what needs to happen in our lives before we can be happy. Maybe we need to get that dream job. Or we need to have a million dollars in the bank. Or maybe we need to have the body of our dreams. Or we need the perfect relationship in order to be happy.

The list goes on. Yes, these things may indeed make us happy. Or then again, they may not.

When we set goals, we also have the tendency, once we’ve achieved them, to replace them with new goals. So you may find that you still don’t feel happy after you’ve achieved that “big goal” because you’ve just replaced it with an even bigger goal that you now need to achieve before you can be “truly happy”.

But by doing this, we stack the odds against ourselves. And if we play this game in order to find our happiness, then there’s a good chance that we’ll spend the rest of our lives chasing down the dreams that may ‘one day’ make us happy.

What if I told you that you don’t need any of those things in order to be happy in your life and that you can be happy today? The key to happiness is learning how to be happy right now, while you work on achieving your goals, instead of waiting until you’ve achieved those goals to be happy.

Here are 6 simple tips that you can start applying today:

1. Practice Daily Gratitude

No matter how bad we think our problems are, you can almost guarantee that there’s someone out there with much bigger problems than us. You may have heard the saying “I cried because I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet”. We need to be grateful for everything we have in our lives and practicing daily gratitude is a great way to train our minds to have an attitude of gratitude.

One technique for doing this is called “3 good things”, where every night, you simply write down three things that went well that day and casually reflect on why they happened. According to a study conducted by Seligman, Steen, Park and Peterson (2005), people who performed this daily exercise for a week, were happier and less depressed at the one-month follow up.

So start making your “3 good things” list today.

2. Be Present Both Mentally & Physically

Whatever you’re doing, make sure that both your mind and body are present. Don’t eat dinner with your family while you’re thinking about work. Don’t do work, while you’re thinking about what you’ll do this weekend. Always be present and let your mind focus 100% on what you’re doing.

If you’re having dinner with your spouse or partner, then try not to think about anything else but enjoying dinner with them. Even if you’re doing something as simple as drinking a glass of water, you can be present. Enjoy the moment and taste of the water as you sip it slowly. Try to find at least one situation every day where you can practice being present.

Simply start by focusing on your breathing. Focus, slow down and appreciate being in the moment.

3. Stop Resisting What You Can’t Control

Stop resisting the things in your life that you can’t control and aren’t the way that you want them to be. Stop worrying about what other people do or say. Start accepting things for how they are, regardless of whether you think it’s right or wrong. Accept it as a fact.

Let’s say that you are frustrated because a work colleague isn’t doing what you think they should be doing. The more you think about that situation, the more frustrated you get. You give them feedback. Maybe you argue with them. But the situation doesn’t improve or maybe it gets even worse.

So you have a choice — you can keep resisting or you can accept the situation without judgement. You simply acknowledge it as a fact. There is no right or wrong. It’s just the current reality. When you do this, the resistance starts to melt away and the negative emotions inside your head and heart also start to disappear.

Identify one situation where you feel you have some resistance and simply accept that situation for what it is.

4) Avoid Negative People & Situations

Another cause of negative emotions and unhappiness are certain people or situations. You probably already know who those people are — they are the ones who seem to only see the negative side to every situation. They are often pessimistic, angry, critical and rarely have anything constructive to say. These people not only create unhappiness for themselves, but they also often drag down others around them by spreading this negative thinking ‘poison’.

If you want to be happy, you have to avoid these people and situations as much as possible. Unfortunately, that’s not always so easy, since these people are often our friends or family members. So if you can’t completely avoid these people, then it’s worth planning ahead and deciding how you’ll deal with them in future situations. The next time you find them being negative, you could either politely tell them that you’d prefer not to discuss that particular topic with them and change the subject. Or you could try to guide them into more positive thinking by asking them questions such as “how do you think you could solve that problem?”.

Don’t allow negative people or situations to also drag you down into unhappiness.

5) Accept 100% Responsibility For Your Life

If we want to be happy, then we have to stop blaming others for what happens in our lives. We need to stop seeing ourselves as victims. I have a family member who I love very much, but she is constantly blaming other people and situations for everything in her life that she’s not happy with. She sees herself as a victim and feels helpless about changing things.

In order to be happy, we have to take full responsibility for everything that happens in our life. When we take full responsibility, we take back control of our life and start to acknowledge that our thoughts and actions create the results in our life, not other people or situations. When we take back control of our life, we stop being victims. Instead we feel empowered to start creating a better life for ourselves.

Be honest with yourself, are you accepting full responsibility for what happens in your life?

6) Be of Service To Others.

One really powerful way to increase your happiness is to focus on helping others. You can give money to charity — but there are more fulfilling ways of helping others.

Instead of giving money, give your time. Get involved with a charity or donate a few hours to help with a local community project. Or just perform small random acts of kindness with no expectation of getting anything back e.g. help a struggling mother dealing with her kids and bags of groceries. Or buy a coffee for the person standing in line behind you.

According to Sonja Lyubomirsky, (a professor of Psychology at the University of California, Riverside and author of The How of Happiness), research shows that almost any type of random act of kindness boosts happiness. So make a habit of performing at least one small random act of kindness every week.

So if you want to feel happier in the present moment, then start by choosing one of these 6 tips and take action today. At the same time, keep working on your goals, but don’t rely on them alone to make you happy. Choose to be happy right now. As self-help author and motivational speaker Tony Robbins says “there’s a huge difference between achieving to be happy and happily achieving it”.

Omer Khan is a husband, father and creator of theRelax Focus Enjoyblog. He’s passionate about personal productivity and helping people to create more time to do what they love. He lives with his family in the ‘sunny’ Seattle area. Pick up your free e-book “Recharge Your Life” when you visitRelax Focus Enjoy.

http://www.acalltoaction.net/ Trevor Wilson

Accepting 100% responsibility for your life is where happiness starts. You’ll never be happy as long as you feel like a victim with little say in how your life is turning out. Taking responsibility puts all the power in your hands.

You’re in charge of the decisions you make and the actions you take.

Happiness comes from living with a purpose. Even if the way isn’t completely clear, just knowing that you’re moving in the right direction for the right reasons will lead to more happiness. It’s easy to be present when you’re engaged in your passions. When you’re working towards something meaningful.

There are many little things we can do to increase our happiness here and there. But I find that it’s the BIG things that truly make the difference in how happy we are. Because if you’re not happy with your life, then you need to change it. And change always starts from within.

Cheers!

Shakti Katiyar

Nice blog really…it works.

http://halinagoldstein.com/blog Halina Goldstein

These are all great points! My life certainly confirms them.

This being said, there are times in most poeple’s lives when “happy” is but a distant planet in another galaxy. Like when your spouse dies, for example. Like when there’s no one to be present with when you eat dinner because he’s no longer here.

At times like these, you can still apply the above – just in tiny, tiny steps. Example: In the midst of an ongoing emotional tsunami, you possibly won’t be able to find 3 things you can be grateful for. You’re the one with no feet! But you can still practice gratitude: Take a moment to just thank yourself for being here. For having lived this day exactly the way you have. For having done your best with this day. Because we always do.

Warmly

Halina

Omer Khan

Hi Halina

I was actually thinking about similar situations when I wrote this article. I knew that these tips would be helpful for many people in difficult situations. But I also started to wonder if they would still apply in situations such as losing a loved one.

It takes a lot of courage and strength to look for things you can be grateful for your life, when you have lost someone who was a big part of that life.

Your comments are very inspiring.

Regards – Omer

http://poisecatalyst.com/ Cornelius

Hey Omer!

I’ve learned to assume responsibility to my happiness. Avoid people, situations and activities that make me feel bad and spend as much time as possible doing things I’m passionate about, around people I love.

I’m still practicing fully living in the present. But I’ve also learned to stop asking for perfection from myself, lol.

Great post,
Cornelius

Omer Khan

Hi Cornelius

Thanks for the feedback! You are ahead of me — I find that striving for perfection is an area that still holds me back. Maybe that should be something I focus on next.

Regards – Omer

http://www.chrisakins.com/ Chris Akins

Hi Omer,

Fantastic post.

I think its useful to discriminate between joy and happiness. Things can bring joy, but joy is fleeting. As you say, the act of achieving of a goal is quickly replaced with another goal.

But happiness is enduring. And happiness comes from within. I propose the source of happiness is a sense of belonging, and in living an integrated, purposeful, value driven life.

Chris

Omer Khan

Hi Chris

Thanks for the feedback. I completely agree with living
an “integrated, purposeful and value driven life”. From my personal
experience, I spent years doing things that I thought would make me
happy, but didn’t really. It was only when I learned to align with my
values that I started to feel a true sense of happiness. If you’re
interested, I wrote another article a while back titled “Clarify and
Align with Your Values for a Happier and More Fulfilling Life” http://www.relaxfocusenjoy.com/clarify-and-align-with-your-values/. I’d love to know what you think about that when you have a chance.

Regards – Omer

Johnny Crosskey

Great article. I too have a family member who sees herself as a victim. The key to happiness is realizing that we control it. When we do that, things may never be perfect but we will operate under the guise that we are “ok”, loved and cared for, it’s just the situation that’s not ideal.

http://www.passiveproductive.com/ Sam Matla

I do think it’s important to continue setting goals after achieving them, but it
comes down to your mindset. I don’t need to achieve my goals in order for me to
be happy, it sure helps. For me, I become happy from living that journey,
regardless of whether I make it or not. It’s awesome.

Point 1 and 5 strongly resonate with me, being thankful is incredibly beneficial to our
emotional stability. Often it’s easy to miss the good things that happen to us.
Point 5 is awesome as it allows us to build a different perspective. We can act
as a victim, or see our failure as a lesson.

Great post. Cheers!

SherLizza

4) Avoid Negative People & Situations: mmmm. How about just observing those people and those situations, and not judging them.We all have negative emotions and we can learn a thing or two from our own negativity as well as from others. Negativity is just another emotion that we have to learn to deal with. Just my 2 cents.

http://www.betterlivedlife.com/ Patrick

Very good article. I have been trying to incorporate these items into my life, and am sometimes succeeding. So, I can say they work.

I would add to #2 that to truly be in the present, make sure you are putting your phone done when you are with others or just trying to experience your surroundings, whether they are new or old.

Happiness is a quest for many and it was for myself as well. Gratitude is definitely one thing that will bring it about. Happiness comes from the self satisfaction of achieving things we set out to do and that can only occur if we break things into do able steps.
I also agree taking responsibility is crucial!

http://thetaoofbadassinvestigator.com/ Jacky

I am totally agree what you mention about being happy at the moment. Especially the section of Stop Resisting What You Can’t Control. In my surrounding area , always got a lot people doing thing without thinking of others people. Make people into troublesome. Some kind of work is their responsibility, but they wont take it and just leave it there.
After viewing your post, I felt that the 6 tips you provided is really important to our life.

Mary Slagel@Shape Daily

I love the idea of each night writing down three things that went well that day and reflecting on why they happened. Each week I like to reflect on what happened and why things happened the way they did and be grateful for what I have, but writing down three things each night is even better.